10 - Claude MONET (1840–1926) Front: Dandy with a pipe (Figure 1a…
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Estimate €10,000 - €15,000

Description

Claude MONET (1840–1926) Front: Dandy with a pipe (Figure 1a) c. 1857–1858 Graphite, brush and brown and grey wash, watercolour and gouache on paper Signed lower left: ‘O. Monet’ Reverse: Man in a Top Hat (Figure 1b) Graphite on paper 246 x 188 mm Expert: Mr Hubert DUCHEMIN [email protected] We invite art lovers and potential bidders to view or download the full descriptive catalogue of comparative works (available on request from the auction house or via the following download link: https://www.transfernow.net/dl/20260610iHAwLTI7 INFORMATION REGARDING THE WILDENSTEIN PLATTNER INSTITUTE’S REQUEST: Once the drawing has been sold, the buyer may request that the WPI include it in the catalogue raisonné of Claude Monet at the next session dedicated to the painter in September 2026. If the WPI accepts the drawing by 31 March 2027 at the latest, the sale is definitively concluded. If the WPI rejects the drawing by 31 March 2027 at the latest, the buyer will be fully reimbursed for the hammer price and commission fees. In both cases, the costs associated with the WPI’s involvement shall remain the responsibility of the buyer, given its optional nature, and the amount paid to the WPI for their services shall not be refunded. If the drawing is not presented by the purchaser to the WPI at the next session dedicated to Claude Monet following the sale of 16 June 2026 and no later than 31 December 2026, the purchaser agrees to waive the right to take any action seeking to annul the sale and/or to claim a refund of the hammer price and sale costs from Le Havre Enchères Auction House or the Hubert Duchemin Appraisal Firm. Born in Paris in 1840, Oscar-Claude Monet grew up in Le Havre, where his parents, Adolphe and Louise Monet, settled when he was five years old. Adolphe was reunited there with his own parents, Pascal and Catherine, and his half-sister Jeanne. Jeanne’s husband, Jacques Lecadre, who owned shops supplying ships with groceries, brought his brother-in-law into his thriving business. Le Havre was then France’s second-largest port and enjoyed a particularly favourable economic position. The Monet family thus moved into a large house on the heights of Ingouville, a town bordering Le Havre. In 1851, the young Oscar enrolled at the town’s municipal school. There, he attended drawing classes taught by Jacques-François Ochard, a former pupil of Jacques-Louis David. A born dunce with little interest in school, he enjoyed sketching in the margins of his exercise books and drawing caricatures of his teachers with humour and derision, before distributing the portraits to his classmates. His talents as a caricaturist soon became known, earning him considerable success in Le Havre. He began signing his drawings with his common first name, Oscar, as ‘O. Monet’ – ‘Claude’ only replaced ‘Oscar’ around 1864. Starting out by drawing small comic figures, he then moved on to caricature portraits, a type of caricature very much in vogue in the mid-19th century, which involved giving the figures disproportionately large heads. He then exhibited his drawings at a stationer and framer named Gravier – where he met Eugène Boudin, who urged him to abandon caricature and instead devote himself to painting landscapes from life. However, whilst it was his landscapes that would make him famous, it was indeed his caricatures that the teenager managed to sell to the enthusiastic and eager residents of Le Havre. Monet retained a deep sense of pride in this early phase of his career. He recalled in an interview in 1900: ‘My reputation was so well established that I was constantly being asked, from all sides, for caricatures. The abundance of commissions [...] inspired me to take a bold step [...]: I started charging for my portraits. Depending on the subject, I charged ten or twenty francs, and the scheme worked a treat. Within a month my clientele had doubled. I was able to set a flat rate of twenty francs without any drop in orders. ‘Had I continued, I would be a millionaire today.’ Whilst receiving additional support from his family, he had thus amassed the sum of two thousand francs through his drawings, a sum with which he set off to study in Paris in the spring of 1859. Set against this Le Havre backdrop, these three beautiful, previously unpublished sheets belong to an early body of drawings dated by specialists between 1855 and 1857. Most of them are held at the Marmottan-Monet Museum, part of the André Billecoq donation, whose family—close to the Monets—had received them as a gift from the young Oscar. These drawings depict humorous faces, though they are not strictly speaking caricatures. Although they very rarely depict real, identifiable people, Monet nevertheless drew his inspiration from Le Havre society of the time, blending residents and travellers drawn to a seaside town then in full swing. Dandies in various headgear (ill. 1 and 2), women from Normandy in traditional dress (ill. 4), or Englishmen in striped trousers (ill. 5), are among the social types that Monet enjoyed sketching. Our first drawing thus depicts an elegant figure, standing on one leg, smoking his pipe, wearing a top hat and a bright red bow tie (figure 1a); the second depicts another man, more rigid, with a cigar in his mouth, wearing the same hat and wrapped up in his scarf and coat (Figure 2); the third depicts a similar male figure, alongside a young woman dressed in an imposing gown, whom he appears to be addressing or accompanying (Figure 3a). Two of the sheets have a reverse side, rendered more sketchily, featuring, in one case, another man of a ‘dandyish’ type (Figure 1b) and, in the other, a couple embracing or dancing (Figure 3b). In addition to these subjects, which are identical in every respect, the technique employed is also characteristic of this first set of caricatures: Monet sketches his figures in pencil in a free-flowing style and, for some of them, applies watercolour enhanced with gouache. He highlights certain details of the clothing in blue or green, the collars in white, the hair in brown, and the noses and cheeks in a characteristic orange-red (ill. 3). Our caricatures, however, appear to be more elaborate, ambitious and developed, probably the latest in the collection and likely dating from 1857. Watercolour indeed takes precedence over the pencil line, which becomes finer or even disappears entirely in places. The young Monet also seems more at ease with hands and feet, which are usually rarely depicted in this body of work, often cropping his figures at calf level and having them tuck their hands into their pockets (ill. 4 and 5). Our drawings are thus similar to *The Painter with the Pointed Hat* (ill. 6), also dated by specialists to around 1857, a work in which the figure is fully coloured and where his hands and feet are clearly visible. Our sheet depicting a couple out for a stroll is, moreover, to date the only known drawing in the collection in which several figures are depicted, suggesting a desire for a more narrative composition on Monet’s part. Finally, the signature confirms the later date of these three sheets. In search of his own style, as any young artist would be, Monet altered it several times. Although he always signed ‘O. Monet’, his early signatures are loose and slanted to one side, whereas some of his caricatures, as well as the only known red chalk drawing in the collection (figs. 7 and 8), bear a clear, horizontal signature, identical to those appearing on our three drawings. Our sheets are thus most certainly among the last known drawings in this corpus of physiognomies and, as such, would chronologically predate his first caricature portraits. Many aspects relating to this production of caricatures—both in terms of its scale and the ways in which it was distributed and preserved—remain, however, to be clarified. The known and studied body of work is indeed very limited, even though Monet seems to have been particularly prolific. Based on his own statements, it is estimated that he produced between one hundred and two hundred caricatures which he sold, in addition to those given to friends and family or which he kept with him throughout his life. The artist’s catalogue raisonné compiled by Daniel Wildenstein lists around sixty of them, classified into different groups, not counting the few sheets that have appeared very sporadically on the art market. This collection therefore remains very incomplete. This scarcity is explained first and foremost by the fragility of these prints, but also by the fact that they probably remained within the families of the models. Due to their low monetary value at the time, the heirs either kept them, seeing no point in selling them, or disposed of them. As 80% of the city of Le Havre was destroyed during the Second World War, it is also likely that the caricatures depicting the people of Le Havre suffered the same fate. However, as Monet’s clientele was not limited to residents of Le Havre alone, some of these works are undoubtedly still to be found in the homes of models who were merely passing through the city. Thus, given this highly fragmentary body of work, our three sheets help to enrich our understanding of this somewhat overlooked phase of the young Monet’s output. In this sense, they can be regarded, given their quality and the maturity of their execution, as a key milestone.

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Auction time 06/16/2026 at 2:00 PM

Lot description modified on 06/13/2026 at 4:05 PM

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10 - Claude MONET (1840–1926) Front: Dandy with a pipe (Figure 1a… See original version (French)

10 - Claude MONET (1840–1926) Front: Dandy with a pipe (Figure 1a…
See original version (French)